Finch sat behind his bank of monitors, fingers flying across the keys, scanning through documents, hastily discarding the shell of a cover he had already constructed for Mr. Reese. They were a bit beyond that point now. Wheels turned in his head, trying to figure out a way to keep unobtrusive eyes on Miss Corvis without her astute knowledge. Throughout this, he found himself periodically waving away a wriggling Bear, who was persistently presenting him with everything from a leash to a tennis ball to a first-edition copy of The Wizard of Oz. And then it hit him. His eyes drifted up from the monitors, and he turned and looked down at Bear.
"Would you like to go for a walk?" he asked. Bear whined and thumped his tail on the tile floors.
Reese had hastily relocated Kat from the café to an uptown diner, well away from the neighborhoods she usually spent her time wandering.
"Mr. Reese, I've had an idea, but I'm going to need a little time to implement it. Stay where you are for the moment, and wait for my call." Finch's voice crackled in Reese's ear.
"Your…call? Finch, don't you think that's a little old school?" Reese murmured under his breath.
"Who you talking to?" Kat asked, peeking over the edge of the colossal, laminated menu in her hands. Reese responded with a chilly gaze, and her eyes dropped back to the 70's-era photographs of eggs, toast, and blueberry pancakes.
"You'll understand shortly, Mr. Reese." Finch replied, before terminating his end of the connection.
Finch sometimes allowed Reese's interactions with others to continue quietly in his ear, particularly when he wasn't in the Library to keep tabs on their actual whereabouts. This was one of these occasions, though he was largely tuning them out. He smiled slightly to himself at the sound of this girl's voice, ordering the eggs benedict. They were his favorite. At least she had good taste.
As they waited for their plates to arrive, Reese once again regarded Kat over the rim of his glass.
"I'm guessing, once they sent you here, the last thing you thought you'd be doing was running from men with guns." He intoned, quietly.
"Well… I thought that might be the case initially, but it was more like delusions of grandeur. I've been here six months, and everything's been quiet. Until today."
"Did you ever see either of those men before?"
"No." Kat replied. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you at first."
"You were being cautious. That's good."
"I'm always wavering between caution and recklessness." Kat smiled, reaching for her water glass. Reese nodded, he knew the feeling all too well.
"I guess I'm less reckless now…" Kat added, almost an afterthought. "I used to have nightmares about… about what happened back in Chicago. After a while, they faded. I started feeling like me again. But…" she trailed off.
"But what, Katherine?"
"But I'll never really be me again. I'm someone else now, I guess." She picked at the already chipped copper nail polish on her fingers. "Literally and figuratively. There are so many things from my old life that I wish I could do… Reese, if you catch these guys, do you think I can go back?"
"To Chicago?" Reese asked.
"Well… There's really nothing for me in Chicago now." Kat had stopped looking at Reese and was fiddling with the thin paper placemat in front of her. If she thought about it, she could still picture the layout of her old apartment. She was trying to focus on the material parts, but the faces of the people she'd left behind just kept intruding.
"I just want to be part of a community who understands me again. Doing what I do now is nice. I get to talk to people… I get to play with a lot of dogs. My roommate, Mallory, she's great. But there's this… this rift. She has no idea who I used to be. Who I am. And I'm forbidden to tell her. There's this whole life I lived, and that person is dead now, and I'm left to mourn all alone."
Reese said nothing, continuing to regard her in silence.
"Is that crazy? That I can tell you that?" She asked, at length.
"I don't think so. You've had to keep it to yourself for long enough."
"Do you want to know the worst part?" She asked, sipping her water. "I did it because I was a coward. The other two witnesses were killed before they could testify, and the police came to me and told me that they wanted to send me away, where I would be safe. They told me it would be safer for my family, my friends, if no one knew where I was going. For all I know, everyone I've ever known thinks I'm dead. And it's because I was a coward. I wanted to keep them safe. I wanted to keep me safe. I didn't know that would mean giving up everything that had made me, me. I think about it all the time, but no one will ever understand that gulf that stretches between the parts of my life, and I'm afraid that's going to mean I'm all alone"
Her insight may have impressed Reese somewhat, but somewhere, on the other side of a phone line, Finch had frozen to the spot as she had begun to speak, lips tense and thoughts trawling his own memories. The truth of the matter was that he knew perfectly well about the rift she spoke of, the line between the living and the dead, and he knew how achingly, unfairly lonely that it could be. After a few moments, Bear's tugging at the end of his leash pushed Finch out of his thoughts, and he quickly ended Reese's transmission and returned to the issue at hand.
Kat and Reese allowed conversation to lapse as plates were heaped in front of them. Kat hadn't had proper diner fare in who knows how long, and she found the eggs benedict, with their accompanying mound of hashbrowns mouthwatering. Reese, on the other hand, knew well that his job was to observe and protect, and no one could be expected to protect with salty French-fry fingers. He continued to warily scan the room and the view from the half-shuttered windows over a bowl of minestrone soup.
Not more than three bites in, Kat's phone began to ring. She fumbled around her purse for it for a moment, hoping against hope she hadn't forgotten about some last-minute client or other, and racing to answer before her incessantly chipper ringtone reached its end. She didn't notice that, at the same moment, Reese's own phone was quietly buzzing in his pocket.
Reese, on the other hand, did notice, and took his companion's momentary distraction as a cue to subtly check it. The number that was calling Kat wasn't registered, and so he routed the call, unnoticed, into his earpiece.
"Hello?" Kat asked, trying not to sound breathless after the scramble through her bag. "Kat's Dogs, can I help you?"
"Uh… yes. I found your number on Yelp?"
Reese had to work very hard to suppress a smile. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Finch.
"Ok. New client. Are you looking to set up a regular schedule?"
"No, actually. I've had a regular dog walker for some time, but he's… visiting family… in Anchorage."
"So you need temporary services?"
"Yes. I thought I could manage on my own, but…" as if on cue, Bear began barking loudly.
"Fantastic. When do you need me?"
"Do you have any availability this afternoon?"
Kat's face fell slightly.
"This afternoon? Well… Tuesdays are usually my days off, and…"
"Please. I'm willing to pay a premium. I shudder to think what Bear might do if I leave him cooped up all day long." Finch, on the other end of the line, was eyeing the dog pointedly. He wasn't sure this was at all untrue.
"…Ok. I guess I can squeeze you in. Can I get your name?" She began rummaging for a pen and paper. Reese pushed his placemat in front of her as she surfaced with the writing utensil in hand. He tried not to obviously notice as she scrawled out the name "Harold Hawke" on the placemat, followed by an address, before quickly folding the paper and stuffing it in her bag.
"That's great. I'll be there in an hour." She said finally, before hanging up and tucking her phone away.
"Well…" Reese said, finishing his soup at last, "it looks like this is my cue to leave you."
"If I run into trouble again, how do I find you?" Kat asked.
"You don't." Reese replied.
"I thought you said I'd see you again." Kat pressed.
"I never said that." Reese corrected, "But, chances are, you'll run into me again sooner or later."